Insights / AEO
What do answer engine optimization services include — and how do you check they work?
· 6 min read
What should answer engine optimization (AEO) services include?
An answer engine optimization service should do three things: make your pages quotable (schema, question-shaped headings, short extractable answers), get them indexed, and measure — with web search switched on — how often ChatGPT, Gemini and others name you for real buyer questions, including how many times they asked. If a provider cannot show you that last number with its denominator, it is selling SEO with a new label. Ours starts at $499 a month.
What should be in the deliverables?
- Schema on every page, validated — FAQ, organisation, product or local business as appropriate
- Question-shaped headings with the answer in the first two or three sentences
- Index coverage tracked weekly — a page Google has not indexed cannot be cited
- AI-citation probes on a fixed set of buyer questions, run with web search on
- A report that shows what did not work, not only what did
What does a real citation measurement look like?
A count and the number of checks behind it. These are ours, from 19 September to 12 October 2026, with web search switched on for every probe:
| Site | Engine | Named | Checks | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Student residence | ChatGPT | 57 | 78 | 73% |
| Agricultural exporter | Gemini | 16 | 75 | 21% |
| Agricultural exporter | ChatGPT | 28 | 147 | 19% |
| D2C wellness brand | ChatGPT | 18 | 81 | 22% |
Notice the spread. A local business answering specific questions (“boys hostel near Medicaps University”) gets named most of the time. A brand in a crowded consumer category gets named about one time in five. Anyone promising the same result for both is guessing.
Why must the probes run with web search on?
Because that is how people use assistants now, and because without it you are measuring the wrong thing. Our own first measurement asked the models without search and recorded zero citations across more than 1,400 checks per engine. That measured whether a small business is in a model's training data — it never will be. Switched to web-grounded probes, the same student residence was named in most answers. Nothing about the site had changed; only the question.
What does it cost?
| Service | Price |
|---|---|
| Visibility — SEO + AEO, measured weekly | $499/mo |
| Visibility+ — content production included | $999/mo |
| One-off AEO audit | $499 |
How do you tell AEO from a rebadged SEO retainer?
- Ask for a citation rate with its denominator. No denominator, no measurement.
- Ask whether the probes run with web search on.
- Ask what happens to a probe that fails — it should be reported as unmeasured, not as a zero.
- Ask to see a case where it did not work, and why.